“Saving” Jobs Isn’t Always Good

The Obama administration is patting itself on the back for saving the jobs of thousands of educators by doling out stimulus funds earlier in the year.
But should we all cheer just because Ms. Frizzle didn’t get the boot? Teachers, like all professionals, have no right to employment. In the private market people who are good at their jobs are in demand and courted with money. People who are bad either work for less money or have to find a different profession. This leads to high-performing workers receiving just compensation and bad employees get sacked. When it comes to your child’s education, does that really seem like such a bad thing-should every teacher good or bad continue to teach or every ineffective administrator continue to clog up the system and waste taxpayer money? That is what the White House and the Dept. of Education assert when they pat themselves on the back for “creating” and saving 250,000 education jobs. Not only are they retaining many school-workers who, perhaps, deserve to be let go, but they are also preventing the emergence of a private market for education. Because of a “free” public option with salaries and pensions paid for with taxes, it is almost impossible for private academies to profitably compete for teachers and pupils.
Far from congratulating the Obama administration, we ought to be condemning such actions as a threat to the health of the American economy, the destruction of any private market for education, and a stab at the rights of individuals to choose which schools and teachers are worth saving with our money.